Samantha Lienhard's Blog, page 119

No, the Final Fantasy VII Remake is NOT Delayed Until 2023

By now you’ve probably seen it, reported either with excitement or dismay, “Final Fantasy VII remake will be out by 2023.”

While I’m sure we will see it by 2023, this has caused a frenzy of upset reactions that we might have to wait that long.

But did Square Enix really indicate we might have to wait until 2023 to get the Final Fantasy VII remake?

No.

In a conversation translated over at The Lifestream, producer Yoshinori Kitase said they would polish up the game for Final Fantasy’s 35th anniversary (which is 2023).

Kitase then signs us off by making the joke previously mentioned in the thread, saying he wishes to keep on polishing up the game for the 35th anniversary, to which they all laugh and Hamaguchi responds objectingly “Hey that’s a long ways off!”

He then however, also goes on to say that a lot is hanging on the next (presumably big) event, and that they’re hoping to show off (the game) by then.”

It was a joke.

They were laughing about it, not making a serious prediction. It’s like when I tweet that I’ll be editing for the rest of my life. They were talking about the 30th anniversary and joking that they’ll still be working on it for the 35th.

Really, if you want to be concerned about anything in this conversation, it should be the part that also puzzled the translator, that they’re designing Cloud to visually look not cool, or more like his actual self than the front he’s putting on.

But the most important thing to take away is that the sites reporting that the Final Fantasy VII remake is still 5 years off are doing so based on a joke.

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The Layton Anime is Off to a Much Stronger Start

After my disappointment with Layton’s Mystery Journey, I had some misgivings about the anime, but I decided to give it a try.

The anime, which has the alarmingly-long title Layton Mystery Detective Agency: Kat’s Mystery‑Solving Files and potentially 50 episodes, isn’t available in English yet, but subtitled episodes have been posted online.

(Currently they’ve disappeared, so I’m not sure if they’ll be put back up or not.)

First, the anime showed me how much names were changed for the game’s localization, usually for puns. Apparently Ernest is actually called Noah in the original version, Inspector Hastings is Inspector Aspoirot, and Aleks is Reggie. I’m especially unsure why that last one was changed.

Anyway, I watched the first five episodes of the anime, and they were much more entertaining than the game!

Layton Mystery Detective Agency: Kat’s Mystery-Solving Files seems to take place either around the same time as or after the events of the game, although it hasn’t referenced the game specifically yet to make that clear. Each of the episodes so far has been a short, standalone case, but these ones are much more interesting than the game’s harmless mysteries.

A phantom thief stealing jewels throughout London, a “diabolical dress” that possesses whoever wears it… these are the kind of mysteries I expected from the game’s premise, shorter stories that still capture the Layton tone.

Complete with absurd twists, of course!

The anime has also done something the game struggled with, and that is making Katrielle seem like a smart, competent detective. We see her investigating, the twists are much less obvious, and even though it still shows each clue as she finds it, the revelations come across more like when Professor Layton would piece together some insane mystery.

It’s had some pretty funny moments, and I might enjoy Kat and Sherl even more here than in the game. She comes across more ultra-dramatic than silly, which is great.

Now, so far the episodes have relied a lot on little nods and references to the original six games, such as the cursed dress episode being a clear shout-out to Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box. It will be interesting to see how it goes from here, but so far the anime is off to a much stronger start than the game.

Here’s hoping we see some official subtitles for the Layton anime soon.

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Layton’s Mystery Journey: A Series of Unrelated Incidents

I love the Professor Layton series, and I was excited for Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires’ Conspiracy.

Unfortunately, it has claimed the throne as my least favorite Layton game.

I’ll start with some positives, because it’s not all bad.

I like these characters!

Katrielle is a very different sort of character from Professor Layton. A little out of touch at times, obsessed with food, and very willing to let people do work for her, but she has a good heart and her quirks make it easy for other characters to play off of her.

Sherl’s dialogue mainly consists of dog puns and questioning Kat’s work ethic, which makes them a funny pair with entertaining dialogue. As for Kat’s assistant, Ernest, he’s probably the weakest of the main cast, but even he contributes to the humor at times.

They’re good characters. If only they debuted in a better game.

When they said this game would focus on smaller mysteries, I imagined something like Layton Brothers or mysteries with lower stakes like Curious Village. Given the game’s premise and title, I expected an overarching story about a millionaires’ conspiracy along with Katrielle searching for Professor Layton.

Instead, there is virtually no overarching story to speak of.

Professor Layton’s disappearance? Mentioned a handful of times at best. The conspiracy? Restricted to the final case. Even Sherl’s origins aren’t explored. The closest thing to an overarching story is that several cases involve the Dragons, the millionaires in London.

But I wouldn’t necessarily object to smaller stories with no overarching plot if they were actually interesting stories. However, the majority of these cases have such low stakes and obvious twists that I never felt compelled to see what would happen next.

If you find the first case’s twist to be cute and harmless, you’re in for a lot more of that feeling.

Most of Layton’s Mystery Journey was simply boring. The exceptions for me were:

the Ratman case, which was actually pretty funny and engaging with its Batman parody
the flashback to how Ernest and Katrielle met, which actually felt like story progression even though it occurred way too late in the game
the eleventh case, which actually had stakes
the final case, which finally felt like a Layton game

Click for Layton's Mystery Journey Case 11 spoilersAnd since Britannias had no relevance to the rest of the game, Case 11 actually feels like one of the game’s most disconnected cases despite being one with actual stakes.

Yes, it took all the way to the final case to even capture that Professor Layton tone. It was surreal. The “conspiracy” that appears in the game’s title is the one thing that actually felt like the premise for a Layton game, to the point where it almost distracted me from the fact that I went through over 20 hours of cute, harmless, low-stakes mini-stories to get there.

So if you’re playing Layton’s Mystery Journey now and wondering if these mundane non-mysteries will ever give way to something more interesting, the answer is yes, but not until you’re almost done with the game.

To its credit, the final case really does feel like a Layton story.

Click for major Layton's Mystery Journey spoilersIt even had a suitably ridiculous twist that I never saw coming. Every other case had a pretty obvious twist, but the final case just came out of nowhere with its revelation.

In retrospect, I think they built up so slowly because they wanted the player to get used to Ernest as a character, but they still could have done that with more interesting stakes.

I fervently hope that the final case is what Level-5’s CEO had in mind when he said there will be smaller-scale mysteries for the next few games.

All right, the Layton games might be story-driven, but a lot of people come for the puzzles, right? At least it has those?

Well…

Layton’s Mystery Journey absolutely has Layton gameplay. You tap around to find hint coins and puzzles, solve tons of puzzles, and get some mini-games to do as well. The mini-games were great. They felt very Layton-esque.

The puzzles, however, favored the “trick question” style a little too heavily. Professor Layton always had a few of those, but they were especially prominent here. It also suffered a little from the problem I saw in Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright, where some instructions were unnecessarily confusing (and in one case, actually incorrect).

It also felt like the writers abandoned all creativity when it came to characters referencing puzzles. The old “That reminds me of a puzzle” might be silly, but at least it made more logical sense than “Look, here’s a hidden puzzle,” which Layton’s Mystery Journey uses for almost every puzzle found in the environment.

Maybe it’s picky to prefer “The smoke coming from this chimney reminds me of a puzzle about smoke” to “Hey, there’s a puzzle coming out of the chimney!” but on top of everything else, this really started to annoy me.

Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires’ Conspiracy focuses much more on a series of unrelated incidents than on a mysterious journey or a conspiracy. It has a fun cast of characters, a mixed batch of puzzles, and abysmal storytelling until near the end.

But hey, it also confirmed Layton Brothers: Mystery Room as canon, so maybe Alfendi will return in the next entry.

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Capcom Has Two “Major Titles” Coming Soon

As part of a financial results presentation, Capcom said they will release “2 major titles” this fiscal year, sometime before March 31, 2019.

(Of course, as we know from the still-unannounced Switch Tales game, a company listing a game in their financial report for a specific time period doesn’t always come to fruition. When will Bandai Namco announce that game?)

But getting back to Capcom, this quiet reference to two major games coming out in the next year has led to much speculation about what they might be.

My top prediction is the Resident Evil 2 remake, which we’ve heard almost nothing about since the announcement in 2015.

Capcom also has plans for Ace Attorney to come to the Switch this fiscal year, but even though I love the series, I’m not sure Capcom would consider it “major.”

There have also been many rumors that Capcom is developing Devil May Cry 5, so many fans think that might be one.

With Monster Hunter doing so well, a new Monster Hunter game is also plausible.

What do you think Capcom’s major upcoming games are? Do you think we’ll hear about them at E3? And if the Resident Evil 2 remake isn’t one, when will we hear about it?

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The Good Life’s Kickstarter Success (and Cat/Dog Gameplay)

If you were following The Good Life’s Kickstarter progress, you’ve probably already seen that yes, it hit its goal!

It didn’t quite reach its stretch goal for the Nintendo Switch version, although it came very close.

Since they didn’t make the Switch stretch goal, the additional money earned above the target goal will go toward additional content for the game, such as seasonal events or more jobs. They will still try to make a Switch version at some point, although it might not be possible.

Meanwhile, during the final days of the campaign, they released videos showing gameplay for when you’re in cat/dog mode, which wasn’t included in the demo.

Here is The Good Life’s gameplay as a cat:

And here is gameplay as a dog:

As you can see, it appears as though being an animal will not hinder your use of the camera in any way… somehow. It also looks like the cat’s strength will be your ability to climb to high places, while the dog’s strength will be your ability to detect scents.

To see that in more detail there is also a longer gameplay video showing how you can track scents as a dog to complete certain quests.

I shared my thoughts on The Good Life’s demo last week, and I’m happy it met its Kickstarter goal. Here’s hoping The Good Life will be a fantastic experience.

Are you looking forward to The Good Life?

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E3 2018 Pipe Dream: Knights of the Old Republic 3

Happy Star Wars Day!

May the 4th always makes me think about Knights of the Old Republic.

I reviewed it two years ago, and last year I included a new sequel or remaster on my list of Star Wars games I want to see.

So this year, let’s talk in more detail about one of my favorite E3 pipe dreams, Knights of the Old Republic 3.

Knights of the Old Republic is a fantastic RPG. I can’t praise it enough. It’s fun, captures that Star Wars feel, and has one of my favorite twists.

Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords is also good. Not as good as the original, although that might be because of the cuts when it was rushed. I usually mention KotOR II in the context of bad endings, but I still enjoyed it overall.

These games had great character and cool stories, so while we continue to lament the cancellation of the story-driven Star Wars game from Visceral Games, we can hope a new Knights of the Old Republic arises to fill the gap. As displeased as I was with EA’s explanation of the changes being made, KotOR could fit their hopes for a “broader experience that allows for more variety and player agency.”

Then again, with my disappointment in Mass Effect: Andromeda and mixed feelings about Dragon Age: Inquisition, maybe a new KotOR under BioWare and EA wouldn’t be what I want after all.

Nevertheless, I’d love to see a new KotOR game as good the first (or second). It’s still a pipe dream for now, but it doesn’t feel impossible. The series could be made part of the new canon, or it could be a reboot that doesn’t follow the first two.

What do you think? Would a new Knights of the Old Republic game live up to the standards of the original two? Will it ever be announced? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

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Additional Site Changes

I’ve made a few more changes to improve navigation on the site and make it less cluttered.

First, I removed the “Reviews” menu option. It felt out of place with the others, especially since any review will include the category link.

Next, I changed the “Home” menu option to “Blog,” to make it clearer that it’s the link to my blog (and that the “Books” and “Games” options don’t lead to blog posts).

Third, I realized the social media icons inviting you to share the post displayed twice after each post. I fixed that.

Finally, it didn’t seem necessary to have two “subscribe” boxes. With one in the sidebar and one at the bottom of each post, you’d often end up seeing both at the same time. Therefore I removed the one from the sidebar, especially since it didn’t quite display right.

How do you feel about these changes? Are there other changes you’d like to see? Let me know in the comments!

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My Time with The Good Life’s Demo

With the Kickstarter campaign for The Good Life nearing its final days, Swery released a prototype demo.

This is especially helpful since The Good Life’s “debt repayment daily life action adventure” photography-themed murder mystery still has people confused about exactly what it is.

Since it’s a prototype, it’s a bit buggy and there isn’t a lot to do, but it still gives a sample of The Good Life’s gameplay. In the demo, you can talk to three different NPCs who give you quests, which you solve through photography.

For example, one character wants proof of two people secretly meeting each other, so you need to find them and take a picture from afar. Another misses his red lorry and asks for a picture to remember it by. In addition to talking to NPCs and taking pictures, you also have the ability to pick up objects, which helps with some quests (such as stopping the lorry).

It’s a short demo. Once you complete a specific quest, the story progresses and you discover the murder, then the demo ends.

There isn’t a lot to the demo, but it’s pleasant and has a lot of potential for interesting quests. My biggest criticism is that I didn’t really like the main character. Naomi is mainly interested in money (she has to pay off a debt in the full game, after all) and she came off as a bit uncaring.

But maybe character development will change that! Either way, I’m interested in The Good Life. If you’d like to check out the prototype demo, it’s available from the Kickstarter page.

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Chuusotsu is Now Available on Steam

Remember Chuusotsu! 1st Graduation: Time After Time, the odd visual novel we discussed almost a year ago?

Chuusotsu is a bizarre story set in a dystopia. The demo was incredibly strange, but in an interesting way that made me back the visual novel’s translation through Kickstarter.

Well, it’s out now and available on Steam.

(Which is a pretty good turnaround for a Kickstarter.)

Backers got their copies a few days early, although I haven’t played mine yet because of my backlog of doom. Still, I hope to play it soon (we’ve heard that before) and review it here once I’m done.

In other news, it looks like the E3 press conference schedule is more or less set. Nintendo was the most recent to announce their E3 plans, with an emphasis on the new Super Smash Bros. game. (Despite how some people have reacted to that news, I’m certain they will announce and show other games as well. Come on.)

We’ll talk more about E3 and potential announcements once we’re a little closer.

In the meantime, what do you think of Chuusotsu?

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2018 Writing Goals and Site Navigation Improvements

I got a request to share my writing goals ahead of time instead of just recapping them at the end of the year, so here are my goals for 2018 (in addition to my game backlog goals).

By 2019, I will:

Finish and revise A Prince’s Price.
Create an outline for the revisions of The Threshing Night.
If The Nightbringer has not been successful, turn it over to someone to critique.
Search for an agent for Agent of the Relari, Penteract of Blood, The Nightbringer, and The Time of Adversity.
Have at least 3 short stories either accepted or actively submitted to markets.
Join a new (paying) video game job.
Manage at least 2 side websites for passive income.
Participate in at least 3 book signing events.

Some of these goals I’m actively making progress toward already, while others are a bit further off.

At the end of the year, we’ll revisit this list to see how it went.

Moving on, I’ve made a few changes to try to improve navigation on the site. I’ve added more tags so that if I’ve blogged multiple times on the same subject, you’ll be able to click the tag to see them all.

I also removed the redundant “horror” tag and added two new subcategories to distinguish posts about “My Stories” and “My Games” from other posts.

Let me know what you think about these changes and other things that would help with navigation!

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